Winter Retreat 2013

Wow, I am finally catching my breath after a whirlwind of shows, classes and travel...2013 has sailed in like one big roller coaster ride! After a homey holiday spent with family and friends, I was off to Asheville to teach and enjoy our yearly winter fiber retreat sponsored by Friends and Fiberworks at Biltmore Square Mall. This year I arrived a day early, as I had some filming scheduled at their local news station WLOS. They have a nice little Craft Corner segment airing a couple of times a week, and had invited me to tape a few more of the 3-minute segments. We taped spots on Dyeing Wool with Kool-aid, Needle-felting Denim Wear, Faux nuno-felting, and another that will air later; if you'd like to see them, you can go to http://wlos.com/shared/community/features/craft-corner/stories/wlos_faux-nuno-scarf-311.shtml and also http://wlos.com/shared/community/features/craft-corner/stories/wolos_needle-felting-denim-wear-315.shtml

I was so glad I went up a day early, as we had some bad weather, a bit of ice and a lot of rain. Luckily there wasn't too much snow and ice in the area I was in, there was some flooding though and very nasty weather for traveling. By the end of the day it was about over though, and so I was able to go and set up my classroom in one of the empty storefronts in the mall. We had a very large room, big enough for several classes to go on at one time in different sections of the room, which was kind of nice as you could see what everyone else was doing. My classes were all wet-felting, we had a couple of Nuno-felted Scarf classes and also a Strappy Shoulder Bag class. The students did some amazing work! I love the emerald green of the one scarf, and the bright happy colors in the other. And the felted bags both turned out beautiful and so different! Check out the fun yarn in the warm-colored bag, it almost looks like fish netting...part wool, and so it embedded itself right into the wool fibers..a very clever idea on this student's part. Great job, girls! And I was fortunate to again room with Suzanne Morgan, we always have such a good time, and this trip was no exception. We even got to visit our fave shops, Bellagio and New Morning Gallery in the Biltmore Village, and then made a little trip to downtown Asheville for some wonderful Spanish food and gallery visits. As usual, this was a fun and very inspiring fiber retreat! I'm looking forward to our fiber cruise to the Bahamas next July, we sail the day after my birthday, woo-hoo!!